People & Places

Jack Crawford

Three appointments have been announced by the board of directors of the Main Street America Group in Jacksonville, Fla.: Jack Crawford, assistant vice president; Bill Garvey assistant secretary; and Steve Sauthoff, assistant actuary.

Bill Garvey

Crawford has been promoted to assistant vice president, corporate counsel. He joined Main Street America in 1976 and was assistant secretary and corporate counsel; underwriter; manager, commercial insurance products; lead underwriter; and district marketing manager. Crawford previously worked for USF&G as a line and home office underwriter.

Steve Sauthoff

Garvey has been appointed assistant secretary, systems analysis and programming. Most recently, he was director, systems analysis and programming. Garvey joined Main Street America in 1985 as director, claims technical. He has also been technical director, systems; and director, customer relationship management. Prior to joining Main Street America, Garvey was an examiner for the Royal Insurance Co. of America.

Mario Garcia

Sauthoff has been appointed assistant actuary. He joined Main Street America in July 2004 as director, personal lines pricing. Previously, Sauthoff was a director and regional product manager for Encompass Insurance, a division of Allstate Insurance Co. He has also held management roles with CNA Personal Insurance, Continental Insurance Co., Allstate and Maryland Casualty Co.

Tiffany Torres

Mario Garcia has been named manager of the new ELIOS Operations Department and office in Plantation, Fla., and Tiffany Torresjoins the office as a conflict resolution specialist. The new Florida location is the first satellite office and will enable ELIOS to serve its growing base of nationwide clients.

According to Jordi Huguet, ELIOS president and CEO, Garcia will expand his duties, along with ongoing responsibilities as ELIOS director of information technology. His IT role requires Garcia to assist in overseeing the company’s product development, client service operations and telecommunications infrastructure. Before joining ELIOS Garcia was an implementation engineer for MCI WorldCom.

Torres will maintain and correct data for the new East Coast Operations Department. Torres previously served as a support service coordinator for SHELTER Inc., a non-profit organization in Contra Costa County, Calif.

As part of his new responsibilities Garcia will oversee the processing of information sent from East Coast clients three hours earlier. The new office has a backup system of all servers in the ELIOS San Ramon, Calif., corporate headquarters. If the California servers go down, the Florida backup system will enable him to immediately go online with no downtime in serving clients’ needs. Having an office in Florida will also extend the firm’s early morning support hours so that East Coast clients can obtain immediate answers to technical questions or concerns.

ELIOS, a paperless solutions technology company for property and casualty insurance companies, was founded in 1999. The firm pioneered the use of technologies to harness the power of the Internet and relational databases to send legally required documents from insurance companies to financial institutions.

The mailing address for the office is P.O. Box 17236, Plantation, FL 33138.

Crawford & Co.‘s 2004 U.S. Quality Award Program has recognized Helena Carpenter, a casualty adjuster at the Claims Management Services Branch in Lexington, Ky.; Bill Bivens Jr., manager of the Healthcare Management Services Branch in Charlotte, N.C.; and Walter Wallace manager of the Risk Management Services Branch in Memphis, Tenn. Crawford & Co. established the program to recognize employees and branches for consistent outstanding performance in producing a quality product and extraordinary customer service.

Awarded annually to employees in the U.S., the Top Quality Award goes only to individuals whose day-to-day performance exemplifies the highest regard for quality of service and customer care.

There are two levels of Branch Quality Awards–Quality Branch and Center of Excellence. The Quality Branch Award recognizes operations branches that have distinguished themselves in quality and customer service. The Center of Excellence Award recognizes branches delivering consistently superior performance in quality and customer service with an emphasis on effective management and development of employees. The managers of all Centers of Excellence are recipients of the Excellence in Leadership Award – Operations.

At the same time, Crawford announced the recipients of its Quality Honor Roll Award recognizing employees whose consistent superior performance in quality and customer service has had a positive business impact.

The 2004 Quality Honor Roll winners are: Jon McCreath, Home Office in Atlanta; and Kristin Licklider, Risk Management Services Atlanta Branch.

Crawford & Company is a large independent provider of claims management solutions to insurance companies and self-insured entities, with a global network of more than 700 offices in 63 countries. Major service lines include workers’ compensation claims administration and healthcare management services, property and casualty claims management, class action services, and risk management information services.

Renee Pinczes has been named chief financial officer of Atlanta-based AssuranceAmerica Corp. She was previously vice president of Strategic Planning and Analysis for PRG-Schultz International Inc. an Atlanta-based recovery audit services firm. Before joining Schultz she was CFO and COO at the Jamison Insurance Group.

AssuranceAmerica focuses on the non-standard automobile insurance marketplace, primarily in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. Its principal operating subsidiaries are TrustWay Insurance, which sells personal automobile insurance policies through its 32 retail agencies, AssuranceAmerica Managing General Agency and AssuranceAmerica Insurance Co. The firm says it has more than 300 independent agencies.

Topics Florida